The Condom vs. The Pill: Should Men Or Women Be Responsible For Contraception?

03/18/2010 05:12 am ET
|
Updated
May 25, 2011

Mike Alvear
Author of Eat It Later. Mastering Self Control & The Slimming Power Of Postponement

Condoms make his willy nilly so he wants her to go on The Pill. She's furious because she doesn't want to mess with her hormones, gain weight and possibly put herself at risk for cancer. All because he can't get used to a little rubber?

I've seen couples break over this. Thing is, they both have a point. Nothing gives a man a
flat tire faster than a condom.
But guys too often act as if they can't do anything about it. Not true. Guys who have tried try my Condom Immersion Program have seen their fear of going limp shrivel up.

Here’s how it works: Together with your partner buy a bucket of condoms and
spend 20 minutes opening them up, stretching them to the breaking point,
putting them on, taking them off, and doing stupid crap like playing
tug-of-war, filling ‘em with water, putting ‘em over your hands and feet and
making balloon animals out of them.

After a few days
of this systematic desensitization, neither the medical texture nor the Goat
Death aroma will stop his cucumber from rising out of the
salad. He'll also become expert at
opening them quickly (another bumper buster—fumbling with the darn things). Condom immersion works by
“extinguishing” the power of condoms to provoke anxieties, leaving you with one
less plot to dig in the erection graveyard.

Still, who wants to have sex with condoms?It’s like eating a peach muffin from through a paper
napkin. Why a committed,
monogamous couple would want to do the bompa-chicka-wow-wow with those dreadful things
is beyond me. Which brings us to women.

If Godzilla’s breathing fire on the
condoms, King Kong is throwing feces against the cage. Yes, a lot of women gain weight (and go
ape-crazy) on The Pill, but a lot don’t. Women need to quit swinging from vine to vine and be willing to test some of the
options (there are ‘combination’ pills, extended-cycle pills, continuous use
pills, low-dosage mini-pills, etc.).

For instance, there's the
natural planning method. By
tracking the signs, symptoms and changes of your ovulation cycle, you can
pinpoint with amazing accuracy the days when you’re most likely to get pregnant.

One tactic involves checking the
consistency of your cervical mucus, which changes to a stretchy, clear and
thick consistency during ovulation—like uncooked egg whites.

Brunch anyone?

Still, while studies show natural planning
is 98% effective, it’s an unbelievably detailed, excruciating process requiring
the kind of commitment OCD sufferers make when they check the door to see if it's locked.

Couples need to haul themselves
over to a dedicated family planning clinic like Planned Parenthood to go over their options. If you’re too shy to go there just yet,
find out which birth control method fits your lifestyle through their kick-butt
online interactive tool.

But the best reason to go there is
to facilitate a truce and bang out a compromise. For example, maybe you switch-hit on the condoms. Sometimes he slips them on; sometimes
you slip them in (the female condom, that is).

When you’re in this kind of titanic
power struggle, how you decide is just as important as what you decide. You King Kongs need to quit swinging from vine to
vine and you Godzillas need to make a peace offering (I vote bananas). Decide together, share the burden and you’ll get back to the basics of
transcendent sex: reciprocity and
generosity.